Viaduct Harbor

The Viaduct Harbour is one of the Auckland CBD’s most popular precincts for hospitality. The project has been well received, making a great contribution by enhancing the experience of the area at night. Mostly the lighting is static, but every hour there is a dynamic show. Special events and holidays throughout the year are also recognized through customized light settings, and these can be coordinated with other dynamic light projects in the city.

Designed to deliver vibrancy and flexibility to survive marine environment offering a visual treat to visitors and enhanced tourism.

The Color Kinetics luminaires also had to survive sea air, salt spray and even partial immersion, and still have a satisfactory light output in ten years' time.

The right lighting
For the western wall, iColor Flex LMX gen2 (now specificed with Flex Compact gen3, RGB), a direct view system, was mounted on stainless steel plates and overlaid with a customized diffusing screen resulting in seamless light movements.

For the southern wall, the luminaire chosen was the ColorGraze MX4 Powercore from Color Kinetics, an IP66 fitting made of high-quality aluminum with a low copper content to withstand the marine location. To avoid the wall looking flat and featureless, the interior of each frame was washed with carefully-directed light that used a gradation in intensity across the surface to provide interest and contrast.

A waterproof secondary housing was designed and built locally from marine-grade 316 stainless steel with a glass lens, and the luminaire was mounted and sealed inside this.

Lighting designer Angus Muir was commissioned to design the creative content while the Philips ActiveSite gateway monitors the health of the system sending real-time fault alerts to address immediately.